Thursday, February 5, 2015

OREGON — It is like finding a unicorn.
A politician has publicly called for psychological evaluations of police officers.
The evaluations would be lawfully mandatory and they would be conducted at least once a year.

Representative Lew Frederick was at a town hall meeting in Portland, Oregon, when he made the announcement.
As of now, officers do take a psych evaluation, but it is only part
of their preliminary entrance into the academy, and its efficacy is
highly questionable, since so many cops make it into the force with a
variety of debilitating mental and character defects.
The new bill would require ongoing psychological examinations of the
mental states of active duty police officers, by law, and presumably
with much stronger restrictions.
He announced a series of bills that would pave the way for
evaluations, an announcement that was met with applause and cheers from
citizens.
“I want to have a regular psychological evaluation of every law enforcement officer,” Frederick said in no uncertain terms.
He cited the unrest in Ferguson as one line of support.

Frederick said he himself also feels concerned about threats to his life by police.

“I don’t know of a single black man in the country who has not had to
deal with concern when they see the blue lights behind them,” he said.
He then added a personal note that “for me, I always begin to think, ‘Am I going to die today?’”
The mandatory psychological evaluation of police officers comes on
the heels of other bills requiring officers to wear body cams and bills
permitting citizens to film officers without harassment.
Frederick cited legitimate concern in support of the bill, appealing to officers’ own self-report of their mental states.

“Every cop that I know can tell me about a PTSD experience they’ve
had and they always say they aren't affected by it. Well they are.”

The psychological evaluations will bear that out, of course, assuming
that officers don’t shoot the psychologists conducting the tests.
In all seriousness, cops should be fully in favor of such a bill.

Buy going through psychological evaluations, they can increase their
own safety and the safety of the communities they patrol, ensuring that
officers suffering from mental problems are given a break and treated
appropriately to prevent them from engaging in misconduct.
If cops have nothing to hide, then they should not be worried about
the power of the State being used to lawfully examine them by force;
they should respect the authority of politicians and obey the law
(should it become one).
Watch the video below: